


House of Memories

by ABecker



Category: X-Men Evolution
Genre: F/M, Like... really slow, Multi, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-06 06:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16827412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ABecker/pseuds/ABecker
Summary: Memories and truth are strong things. Stronger, at least, than the powers of some two-bit illusionist rushing through a job to save his own skin. And Wanda won't be lied to anymore. Post-season four continuation.





	1. A Comforting Lie

Wanda always said she was happy now, for once. She was happy in the Brotherhood, her anger some sort of... vague inkling that stayed just out of reach. No matter what meditation techniques she'd try that Agatha had taught her once upon a time, whatever magics she'd practice to jog her memory, there was something strange about it. After a few months of seeking truth following her impromptu visit to her father's headquarters, well, she decided to surrender. According to that psychology class she was taking online to catch up on her high school degree following... God, why didn't she remember why she didn't go to school?... well, memories could be faulty. That was something that happened. Victims of crimes couldn't pick their perpetrators out of a lineup, most people can't remember what shirt they'd worn yesterday. After all, she'd driven out to the Poconos just a few weeks ago for some skiing and she _never_ remembered taking driving lessons while still being the best driver in the Brotherhood. Not like that was a gleaming accomplishment or anything. 

Anyway, her stay at the Brotherhood house had mostly been apolitical as of late. She wanted to stay with her brother, Father would visit sometimes for a dinner, and most of the X-Men, really hadn't turned out to be that bad of people. Or at least the ones who would _sink to the level_ to tutor her. The telekinetic was at college, and there was a strong impression that she wouldn't help anyway. But there was Rogue who'd help with humanities, and even outside of studying, she found a friend in the other girl. The two shared a similar fashion sense, Rogue had a bit of an affinity for Gambit that Wanda would joke about, and there was an aspect to their mutant-ness that they shared, of their powers being deemed too dangerous to be completely allowed in public. Kitty would come to help with science classes, but really only under the condition that Lance was out of the house, which was becoming increasingly rare, which was a shame because sciences were where Wanda struggled most as a child whose tutor was, well, a witch, a sorceress, a woman who showed how evident the metaphysical was with no attempts or excuses at explaining it away. Agatha always said, after all, that Wanda's powers were part X-gene, part magic. And there was Kurt. 

Kurt, she'd seen as, in theory, a distant cousin, the type of child she should've been sent off to play with had Mystique kept him. By all means, she wished that _had_ happened. He was a pleasant boy. All the good parts of _Toad_ filtered and turned into a tolerable homo superior. Socially adjusted, good hearted, an incurable optimist that was willing to look past whatever disagreements lay between the X-Men and Brotherhood. She was one of the few people he'd turn off the image inducer for. He helped with her German class, initially because she remembered hints of a similar language in her early childhood with someone she distantly remembered as her mother in those short years before she'd died for having a child with Father, when he'd fled for America with two toddlers in tow. Besides, Father spoke Yiddish. A lot of Yiddish, taking it for granted that his children were too stupid to understand the language. She'd learn Polish later. 

During an unseasonably warm day (the Weather Witch must be in a good mood, she mused) Kurt sat in a tree limb, hanging on by his tail and feet, while Wanda levitated (the deprivation of the sense of touch helped her concentrate) on the unkempt lawn. 

"I always kind of wondered," Kurt began. "When did you forgive Magneto?"

"For what?" Wanda asked, trying to be gruff but a hint of her real curiosity peeking through. It was a question a lot of people would bring up, from Toad to the telekinetic, though her volunteer tutors never brought it up, never talked shop.

"Well... the Professor says you were locked in a mental hospital." The mutant's brows knotted in concern, a strange expression on his usually cheerful face that earned his 'elf' nickname.

She didn't get much of a chance to think about it though, because the second the words 'mental hospital' were uttered, it felt like a dam had burst in Wanda's mind. And like a dam in her mind had burst, so had the tree, the fence, the lightpost, the satellite dish on the house, and the road, the grass under her frying and the smell of ozone surrounded everything as blue sparks overtook her field of vision, not that she was paying attention to that when her rubber band of a mind had snapped back. 


	2. Memory Freeway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a minor trigger warning for mentions of menstruation and mentions of medical horror. Also, here are some notes on the canon I have for the X-Men: Evolution universe:  
> Erik and Magda had Wanda and Pietro in a small village in Liechtenstein. Magda, who knew what mutants are and hated them, killed herself after realizing she married a mutant and had mutant children. After, Erik fled to the US and raised Pietro and Wanda in Amish country until Wanda lost control of her powers and he sent her to the mental hospital and Pietro off to live with an ally of his without useful powers. (Lorna may or may not come into play later no promises)  
> Wanda's powers rely on both witchcraft and probability manipulation, so she still uses chaos magic. Agatha helps her control it.  
> Rogue has Kurt's intended origin. That is, she's the biological daughter of Mystique and Destiny, and was mostly raised by them, though Mystique was often away "for work".  
> Kurt is a trans man because I say so.  
> I think that's it for now. Only the first point has any relevance to this chapter.

_Mental hospital. Mental hospital. Mental hospital._ The German accented words banged around Wanda’s head like that thrasher music Rogue listened to. The words chipped a dike in the dam of memories, and her whole life wasn’t in snapshots, in slow motion, but it was like she was in the middle of a freeway, being hit by memories that had been hidden in some clouds, some shadow, to make her life seem happy, only to be stripped away by the harshest varnish that two words can be.

_10._

Pietro wakes up to whitening hair. He’s the first twin to show any signs of mutation. In her mind, Wanda knows it makes sense. Boys hit puberty earlier, boys show signs of mutation earlier. But it doesn’t stop the flood of jealousy. Wanda exceeded her twin in studies. Wanda knew to behave. Wanda was Father's favorite. _Should be me should be me should be me_ is the mantra flooding her mind as a shocking sensation flits its way across her fingertips and a lamp shatters.

_12._

Wanda cursed her father’s stiff traditionalism, his refusal to hire them a female tutor, his refusal to sit her down and tell her what was happening to her the way he’d done for Pietro. No, she was hunched over a toilet, her lower torso twisting in the most painful knots. The clinical books and pamphlets Father had gotten her said this made her a woman, the pain was normal, but this was all a secret, the men mustn’t know. But the pressure in her was building, and the pressure in her head was building, and the shocking tingle made its way into her hands again. _I don’t want this I don’t want this take the hurt_ she thought over and over in her mind, until everything snapped and the mirror and porcelain shattered, the metal warped, and she was sitting in darkness when Father burst into the bathroom, his original concern covering his face replaced by awe that, yes, his daughter had done this.

_13._

The occasional sparks and bursts of energy, the tingling electricity in her hands, had grown more regular. She had gotten to the point she was afraid of herself, what she could do to Pietro. Father made a friend. A crone in black robes, a weary voice she had to strain to understand. Her name is Agatha. She’s Wanda’s new tutor. Pietro is starting to exhibit his own powers, he’s fast. Father is considerably less impressed with the development. Agatha teaches her some things, some ways to contain her power. Breathing exercises, meditations. She says Wanda’s mutation is a mix between genetics and magic. Her power grows more, but now she can control it. _I want to be alone_. The thick steel orb Father made as a place for her during her meltdowns shuts and digs itself underground. _I want to fly_. The static forms plasma and the plasma lifts her, lets her float, lets her propel herself. She sees the empty Midwest landscape as blocks of alternating crops being grown. A smaller, less willful wish fills her mind. _I want something more._

_14._

Father assured Wanda that her powers would stop growing, but that hadn't happened. Agatha wasn't helping anymore, the shock in her fingers was a presence. At the smallest hint of discontent, her powers would lash out at whatever was nearest. Father was on the telephone. "It doesn't matter what her powers are anymore. She's no use to me." The next day Father took them on a road trip, to New York. It was a city she'd only seen in her books, a city that never sleeps, a city of lights, of crowding, humans who didn't know they lived among something so much more than them, something that would one day rule over them. That was what Father said. She would one day be Father's princess in a more literal term, and she supposed this was an interaction so she could attempt to blend in with the ants. But before the exit, they pulled off, and in the night, Wanda supposed this was the house he'd rented for the evening, until she was cuffed and put in a straitjacket, until she couldn't move her hands and the pressure in them and her head grew and grew while she was forced inside the building. She called out to him in pain and fear, but he only looked on, stone faced while the door shut behind her. 

Everything else flooded back. The two years in the asylum, the pain, the constant pain, being force fed through tubes, being sedated for days at a time, the visits from the professor, who also tried to control her. And finally. Visiting Father in his stronghold in the Alps where she had her memories forcibly changed by a mutant.

So many feelings flooded through her. Anger, relief, fear, sadness, abandonment, panic, as though she was reliving every day since her commitment all at once, and all she could manage to focus on was Father. _Bastard. Bastard. Bastard._


	3. Empathy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There aren't any content warnings here in this chapter.

The surge that made its way through and around the Brotherhood house _definitely_ was enough of a signifier to indicate something was wrong for Pietro. As he zipped outside the Brotherhood house to see what exactly had happened, it was a display of raw power he hadn’t seen from his twin in years. Since her outburst three years prior when she broke the shack made of 3-inch thick steel walls and Dad decided she was too dangerous to keep at home. When she had her fit as she first arrived at the Brotherhood house, it was damaging, yes, but it was directed at something. At _him_. And her rage and will always had a target. Dad, the X-Men, the Horsemen, the Acolytes, Apocalypse. There had to be something that went _very_ wrong that her preteen aimless rage and power looking for an excuse to be expended had, well, expended itself in a very forceful way.

And there his twin was, crouched in a heap that decidedly wasn’t her attitude when Nightcrawler came to help her with her schoolwork, and the elf wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Instead, there was just Wanda, shaking, covered in the blue plasma that guarded her body and shocked anyone that would dare touch her. Despite his complicated past with Wanda, there were things that couldn’t be changed, and that was that Wanda was his sister, his twin. They’d faced their childhoods together, and while to most anyone who would ask he’d reject it, but there were times when he’d feel a certain connection to Wanda. It was rare. He’d mostly tuned it out when Wanda was at the hospital due to her near- constant pain, but if he wanted, and sometimes if he didn’t, he could tune into it, and he felt like an idiot for not feeling it the second the surge happened, because it was overwhelming now. Anger, hurt, betrayal, it was like reliving the day Father left her at the hospital. An entirely fresh wound from someone who was far more dangerous than she was at fourteen.

As if Wanda had detected her brother’s presence now, her dark eyes sparked the same blue as her hexes as she looked up, tears flowing down her face. He’d seen his sister angry plenty of times, but this was the same betrayal and trauma in her eyes as that day. “You _Lied to me,_ ” she said, shaking. “ _You’ve always been just like him._ ” Slowly, she stood and the plasma retreated for her body except for her hand, and she cast it out.

Pietro felt himself thrust through the air against his will, as his body smashed against the siding of the house. And just like that, Wanda had shut him out again. All he could feel was himself as he saw his sister striding down the street, but if there was anything Pietro had learned in his long process of trying to repair their utterly broken sibling bond, it was to not come after his sister when she very much didn’t want him to.

* * *

Wanda was alone again. Of course she was alone. When wasn’t she alone? Ever since her powers started manifesting, everybody kept her at an arm’s length. Even… even _Agatha_. In retrospect, she should be adjusted to the isolation. But the betrayal of living something adjacent to a normal life to have it all torn away from her with the memory that not even her _father_ wanted her, saw her as a liability in his goal to build Genosha.

She could stay at the Brotherhood house, but what would that do? That traitor Pietro was still there, and everyone in the house was undoubtedly still loyal to Magneto and liable to set him on her so he could wipe her mind again, fill it with falsehoods of a world where he didn’t lock her away in a prison with bare walls like a problem he didn’t feel like solving. And going aver Magneto right now, without any planning, would land her right back where she started, easily goaded into a trap so simple that even Pyro could do his part without mucking it up.

Maybe…

Maybe the way to start making him pay shouldn’t be physical, but mental. Let him feel abandoned, betrayed.

The thought of what she knew she had to do raised bile in her throat. Xavier had spent years “helping” her by intentionally suppressing her powers, always during every session reaching out a hand to please, join his school. So he could what? Tame her? Hold her back like he did to everyone else? Jean, the Omega-level telepath and telekinetic, Rogue, who could simultaneously drop an enemy while learning everything about them and assuming their powers?

But she wanted revenge more than she could ever stay prideful.

Damn it.

Rogue had given Wanda a communicator. She said she’d gotten it the night her powers manifested, the X-Men found her and Jean used it to reach out. She hoped to reach out the same way. Funny. The one who would never tell anybody her own name was the one who was most transparent with her, and the only one who had even made the offer to let her move in. Usually she only used the communicator to set up study appointments, but…

“Rogue?”

“Oh. Wanda, hey! Somethin’ up? Kurt came back from the study session seriously freaked.” The Mississippi twang held concern and she could practically _see_ Rogue walk over to the window to make sure Kitty wasn’t listening in by the way she quieted herself.

“No, I’m fine, just a growth spurt, uh, I just need a place to crash for a bit.”


End file.
